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This is a short book, intended to target an undergraduate or non-specialist audience, and introduce them to some of the major themes in current academic study of France in World War One. I read it, fairly cursorily, in graduate school, and kept notes in preparation for comprehensive exams. In that sense, it served its function well, forcing me to look at the "other side" of the First World War in a serious and analytical manner, without distracting me from my major work on Germany.

Much of its focus is on the home front and the means by which the "war culture" of France resulted in a relatively unified French society throughout the hardships and occupation of the prolonged trench combat. A chapter which focuses specifically on the soldiers demonstrates the degree to which the horrors of this war prefigured the even greater horrors of the next. Perhaps the most interesting discussion is in regard to mass strikes against the war that took place both in civilian and military workplaces in 1917. These strikes, which did express mass dissatisfaction with the harshness of conditions and the seeming futility of successive assaults against the Germans, did not result in a true anti-War movement, as most French still wanted an honorable peace through victory. Ultimately, the result was the rise of Clemenceau and an associated "brutalization" of French politics, as the leaders of the strikes were court-martialed and shot or harshly sentenced. A final chapter muses on the ambiguity of the final victory and the ways in which the French tried to memorialize their dead.

The authors have done a fine job of introducing their subject matter to an unfamiliar audience. When they stray from their expertise, they sometimes make errors (as on page 185, wherein 1998 is claimed to be the "50th" anniversary of Kristallnacht in Germany, when it would have been the 60th), but the main text is free of obvious mistakes. A serious researcher would prefer more citations to follow up on the information given, but the bibliography at the end is probably sufficient for its intended audience. A short but serviceable index at the end also adds to its value. In all, it is a good book to supplement University-level study of one of the most interesting periods in French history.